nina bullock – vocals, guitar
In 1974 my Mom loaded the four of us kids, my brother’s best friend Cricket, and my sister Liza’s friend Lisa into a converted Bluebird school bus and headed west. We named the bus Sunshine. She was painted 2-tone blue, had those wonderful hippy flowers painted on her sides and was completely renovated inside with bunk beds, a galley kitchen and a head with a shower. She was our home for six weeks as we travelled across the USA from our hometown in Princeton, Massachusetts, thru the Midwest and over the Rocky Mountains, to the west coast where we camped on the Olympic Peninsula. The trip back east followed the byways of southern Canada, thru Glacier National Park and on to Niagara Falls where we entered back into the USA. It was a trip which, in many ways, shaped my childhood and etched amazing everlasting pictures into my head. Even after 40 years I can still see the vivid views of the many places we visited and the adventures we shared. I think we must have sung “Country Roads” a million times before arriving back in New England.
It was also on this trip that my sister Liza started playing the guitar. I was 10 years old and totally intrigued by that beautiful wooden instrument with those 6 nylon strings! I would watch her play it and was mesmerized when she sang “The Streets of Laredo”. Once back home, and being “the pesky little sister who was always getting into everything that didn’t belong to her,” I would creep into to Liza’s room when she wasn’t home, snatch that guitar with the tab music books and hide back to my room. I spent hours figuring out the chords and teaching myself to play “Michael row your boat ashore” and “He’s got the whole world in his hands”. Of course my secret sessions were not so secret. I was never a quiet little girl and my voice could be heard through the whole house. Liza didn’t find it amusing at all. So after a year of me stealing Liza’s guitar, mom gave me one of my own.
This was the beginning of my musical roots; down home New England, living in the country, open spaces, playing my guitar and singing without boundaries or formal training. It was the environment which I needed to find my heart and my emotions through the songs of the great American folk singers. While my friends in school were listening to ABBA, I was engulfed by the songs on Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” album. The melancholy, the poetry, the heartbreak – the magic and power of the music and how it could sooth my soul, expand my emotions, and comfort me in my darker moments.
I have no boundary between my voice and my heart. For me, it is not possible to just pick a random song out of a hat and play it just for fun. Music for me must have meaning, it must have a heart. When a song moves me and stirs my emotions, I want to pass it forward, to let people feel what I feel, and celebrate the life of the song. Songs are eternal. Even when they have been hidden away for years in a record cabinet, they can be rediscovered and brought back to life, once again touching hearts and harmonizing with emotions. With my voice, I seek to honor the gifted artists who have shared their musical treasures with our world and it is my hope to encourage people to feel, love and live through music.
Some of my favorite artists: Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Dan Fogelberg, Jackson Browne, Simon and Garfunkel, Janis Ian, Bruce Cockburn, Dixie Chicks, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Sarah MacLachlan, Susan Tedeschi
1995 – 1997 Nina & Jogi – Duet with Acousticbass
1995 – 1996 Borderline – Country
1997 – 2010 Nina Bullock – diverse band formations
2011 – 2013 Gravel Road – american country, folk, rock
2014 – present Somethin’ special
